Hello, its blogging time again and its also anniversary again as for this blog entry today, Im taking a look a web series that was not only the first of its kind, but paved the way for similar content to follow. Today you can find any type of video on the internet regarding video games, whether it's a game review, a lets play, a funny moments montage, whatever you want it's easily available. However, this weren't always the case, if you were to go back to 1999 and you wanted to watch a video on the internet involving video games, you might as well try getting a photo of Bigfoot. Most people tended to get information about games from magazines like Nintendo Power or Gamepro, or use an early website like GameFAQs. Internet videos were generally off the table as you had to download them which would take hours, and often wouldn't look that good when they finished.
But that didnt stop 2 friends from doing it anyway, and on November 7th, 1999, the first episode of a series called The Game Room aired on an internet startup website called FromUSAlive, covering Metal Gear VR Missions for the PS1.
The Game Room Episode 1 (1999)
The Series was created by Mark Bussler and David Crosson. The two had met at film school and shared a mutual love of movies and video games.
Left to right: Mark Bussler and David Crosson in 2000
At first, Bussler and Crosson planned to review mainly modern games, but after a segment on older games proved to be popular, the show began reviewing earlier titles. The first older game that they covered was Xevious for the Atari 7800 (Originally released in the test market in 1984 and nationally in 1986) on Christmas Eve, 1999.
The Game Room Episode 12 (1999)
At the time the idea of a web series covering video games was unheard of, so watching videos like this was a unique experience. Unfortunatly, due to the shows limited budget, Only 39 episodes were produced with the last video, A review of Tokyo Xtreme Racer 2 for the Sega Dreamcast, airing before the Show was canceled on October 23, 2000.
The Game Room Episode 39 (2000)
After spending the next 8 years producing and directing American history documentaries, Bussler decided to revive the series, calling it Classic Game Room HD (HD standing for Heavy Duty according to Bussler). In this version of the series, Bussler covered each game by himself. The first video covered in this series was Zaxxon for the Atari 2600, Airing on February 20, 2008.
Classic Game Room HD Episode 1 (2008)
By 2012, The channel had a sizable amount of subscribers and videos, Bussler had a website for the series, and a spin off called CGR Undertow was created. Unfortunately by 2013, things had changed, CGR's screen name was changed to Lord Karnage, and by the end of the year, the series had left YouTube, and all future reviews were subsequently released on Dailymotion. This caused a great deal of controversy amongst fans and other video game reviewers. Eventually the series returned to YouTube on May 8, 2014.
On November 2, 2015, Bussler announced that the show would highly slow its production following the end of the 2015 year. Changes would include the shutting down of the show store and its secondary channel CGR Undertow entirely ending production. He stated that this was due to a change in his life and his desire to focus more on writing and filmmaking.
Bussler later opened a Patreon for the series at the recommendation of fans in order to keep the series operating as normal, but would be renamed Classic Game Room Mark 3. The first CGR Mk3 was released on January 8, 2016. During mid-2016, due to declining YouTube ad revenue, Bussler experimented with a premium content delivery system. Subscribers on Patreon received full length game reviews, dubbed "Hyper Cuts", and free streaming video services received significantly shortened preview-length versions of the same reviews – effectively creating a partial paywall.
This was also met with negative reaction by fans, overall average runtime of the free streaming reviews returned to their normal length, with extended reviews available to Patreon subscribers. The extended reviews later became available on Amazon Prime in December that year.
In June 2017, Bussler announced another update to Classic Game Room, intending to broaden the content variety that would also encompass toys, comics and anything else Bussler fancied, with subsequent videos dropped the Mark 3 moniker.
In 2018, Bussler announced another new move off on YouTube and supposedly permanently onto Amazon Prime, under the new title of Classic Game Room 2085, for March. The new series would feature episodes far longer than YouTube, and cover a variety of games in each one. Bussler cited irrevocable differences and frustration with YouTube and its services as the contributing factor. Season 1 debuted on March 2.
On February 5, 2019, Bussler said a second season was as yet undecided. Around the time of the main series' 2023 revival, however, Bussler announced there would be a second season of 2085 starting at the beginning of 2024. Season 2 began as of January 1, 2024.
Today, the series is still around, and why interest is waning, it can't be denied that this series has had a big impact, even if unintended. Even if im not personally that much a fan of the series and watched it on occasion, I feel like without it, I don't think Internet gaming videos would be a thing and I would have never gotten the love and appreciation for old and new games and career path as an aspiring game developer I do now. That's all I have more my blog entry today, thanks for reading, see you next time!
